Berlin
Thanks to the turnaround in interest rates: Many banks are once again offering savers better conditions. One has now broken the three percent mark for the first time.
Good news for investors: The direct bank ING has announced a new top interest rate. With 3.0 percent interest on call money, Germany’s largest direct bank not only attracts new customers. Savers who already have deposits with ING can also look forward to the interest rate hike. The market leader is thus reacting to the growing competitive pressure and the They are slurredwith which the European Central Bank (ECB) is fighting years of savings slump.
Up to 50,000 euros: ING guarantees three percent interest for six months
The high interest rate is guaranteed for six months. The savings system is protected twice over. The protection mechanism of deposit insurance, which is valid for the entire EU, is also supported by the deposit insurance fund of the Association of German Banks (BdB). The double floor offers a rescue volume of up to five million euros per saver, but the offer is actually aimed at smaller ones investor.
Also read: What Germany expects in the event of a banking crisis
Because the promotional interest rate of three percent per year only applies to deposits of up to 50,000 euros. The bank not only wants to attract new customers, but also retain existing investors. Prerequisite: The money must not come from the in-house checking account. To get away from the high interest rate on that cash accountwhich is located at ING Germany “Extra-Konto” states to benefit, but existing customers must pay in by April 25th at the latest.
Expert speaks of “interest rate rally”: Rising interest rates expected
ING (until 2018 ING-DiBa) is the first Bank, which breaks the three percent hurdle. With the provisional top interest rate, the subsidiary of the Dutch ING Group is reacting to the growing competitive pressure. Previously, with the Santander subsidiary Suresse Direct Bank and the Bank of Scotland and Consorsbank, smaller financial institutions had already offered yields of between 2.4 and 2.55 percent.
In the “Handelsblatt”, the managing director of the comparison portal Verivox Oliver Maier predicted: “In the near future the interest rate rally should continue to pick up speed and classic savings investments will finally bring more lucrative returns again.”
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Aiming with the chess move market leader ING has an old goal, namely to unite ten million German savers under one roof. As of February, 9.1 million Germans had deposits with the bank, a value that has stagnated for five years. The biggest competitor, DKB, wants to escape the spiraling interest rates.
Here a “deliberate decision was made against temporary lure offers, limited investment amounts and unequal treatment”, as Managing Director Stefan Unterlandstättner confirmed in a press release. Credit institutions that operate without their own branches are referred to as direct banks. They are usually subsidiaries of larger banks and usually offer better conditions than branch banks.
ECB triggers interest rate turnaround: the end of penalty fees
The fact that most financial institutions are again offering lucrative interest rates after years of negative interest rates or zero rates is due to the interest rate turnaround by the ECB. In July 2022, as a reaction to the EU-wide inflation, this had the for the first time in eleven years policy rate increased and then further increases performed. Banks had previously had to pay penalty interest on parked money at the ECB, but the deposit is now worth it again.
Learn more: Turnaround in interest rates: Cushion inflation with call money or fixed-term deposits
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